In January, I had the opportunity to attend Edible Institute, a two day conference about sustainable and local food, and the trip became more enticing when I learned it would be in sunny Santa Barbara. When we arrived, we stepped onto the sun-drenched tarmac and, like flowers, turned our faces to the bright sunlight.  Ahhh, sunshine.

Santa Barbara is a beautiful town with lush landscapes, red tile roof Spanish architecture and lovely beaches.  Our first night we explored the charming downtown area, shopped a bit on State Street and dined at The Hungry Cat, the seafood restaurant of James Beard winner, Suzanne Goins. The craft cocktails and food were divine with the clams with chorizo being the big winner. The chorizo was spicy and bold without overpowering the tender clams.

While the Edible publishers were hard at work on Friday, I wandered up the hill to Montecito to check out the small neighborhood farmers market wedged into the parking lot of the local shops. Southern Californians are truly blessed with the wide variety of produce available to them even in January. On this sunny morning, the market booths were loaded with gorgeous flowers, mandarins, berries, apples, chard, kales, asparagus and even purple artichokes. We won’t see this bounty in Central Texas until late spring and I caught myself desperately wishing for a kitchen where I could prepare a great meal.

I settled instead for some of the prepared foods to stock our hotel fridge and to bring home to Austin. I couldn’t resist buying blood orange juice and a bag of mandarins. I was intrigued by the garbanzo beans grown by a local farmer and bought a container of his avocado and cilantro hummus. We had tasted wines from Happy Canyon the night before, so a bottle of Olive Hill Farm olive oil from the same canyon also seemed a must.

At lunch I reconnected with a group of Edible publishers and we ventured to one of Santa Barbara’s famed taco spots – Lilly’s Tacos. The line out the door immediately signaled to us that we had picked a great spot. This taqueria one block off State Street offers seven types of traditional tacos with fillings from plain beef to eye. As adventurous as I am, I wasn’t brave enough to order the ojo (eye) or labio (lip) taco and instead opted for adobada (marinated pork), cachete (cheek) and lengua (tongue).

The tacos were amazing. The cheek and the tongue tacos were moist, rich and perfectly tender from their long braise and the marinated pork had a tangy zip that was a nice contrast. Lilly is a taco genius.

On Saturday morning, we got up early to visit a few more markets. We started with a long stroll down the beach to the Harbour to check out the small fisherman’s market. We found tubs and crates of crabs, lobsters and Kellett’s Whelks (sea snails) and a palette of ice topped with black cod. As we eyed the sea snails, Jenna and I debated whether we would have been brave enough to buy them if we’d had a kitchen. I wondered the same about the prehistoric looking spider crabs. They looked more like something from a horror movie than I might want in my boiling pot.

We strolled from the Harbour to the Santa Barbara Famers Market where we were greeted with a terrific array of produce including avocados, Brussells sprouts and blueberries. I was excited to try walnut oil and bought a small can home to experiment with.

I was delighted to find a vendor with dried beans and again lamented that we don’t have a farmer in Central Texas growing beans (hint, hint – again.) I bought Scarlett Runners and Calypso beans to add to the experimenting list.

Santa Barbara was a welcome winter escape.  We had a terrific time soaking up the sunshine and indulging in the local bounty.
View the full photo set on Flickr.